Joyce Chen

A native of Taiwan, Dr. Joyce Wei-Jo Chen 陳瑋若 is a harpsichordist, organist, musicologist, and educator. She currently serves as Assistant Director of Liturgical Music at the University of Portland, overseeing the university’s liturgical music program and collaborating with students, faculty, and Campus Ministry in leading music for worship. During the 2026–27 academic year, she also completes her final year as Assistant Professor of Historical Keyboards and Musicology at the University of Oregon, where she teaches across academic and performance areas, offering instruction in organ, harpsichord, and basso continuo, teaching musicology courses, and directing the Collegium Musicum.

In Spring 2026, Dr. Chen completed her Ph.D. in Historical Musicology and Humanities at Princeton University. Her dissertation, Musica Experientia/Experimentum: Embodied Acoustics and Keyboard Knowledge in Europe, China, and America, 1600–Present, explores the intersections of science, music, and aesthetics through instrument making, sensory experience, and the development of acoustical theory. Her research focuses on early modern keyboard culture, historical performance practice, organology, and the global circulation of musical knowledge. She is the author of the chapter “Strozzi and the Harpsichord” in Barbara Strozzi in Context, edited by Beth L. Glixon and Wendy Heller and published by Cambridge University Press in 2026. Her work has been presented at conferences in the United States and Europe, including meetings of the American Musicological Society, the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music, and the History of Science Society. In 2026, she became the inaugural recipient of the Barbara Owen Research Grant from the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies for her project, Chinoiserie at the Keys: Exoticism, Character, and Interpretation in Eighteenth-Century French Harpsichord Music.

As a performer and educator, Dr. Chen is the recipient of Early Music America’s 2026 Thomas Binkley Award, which recognizes outstanding achievement in collegiate early-music ensemble direction and honors leaders whose work has made a lasting impact on students and the field of early music. She previously received the 2018 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts and was a featured soloist in Early Music America’s 2019 Emerging Artist Showcase.

As a solo harpsichordist, Dr. Chen has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Taiwan. Her appearances include the Musica Antiqua Festival in Belgium, the International Normandy Baroque Competition in France, the Prix Annelie de Man in Amsterdam, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Empressa Ensemble, Chamber Music Northwest, Oregon Bach Festival, Chatter PDX, Ars Musica Chicago, and recital tours in Taiwan and the Pacific Northwest. She also performs regularly as a continuo player, chamber musician, and organist.

Dr. Chen holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Harpsichord Performance from Stony Brook University and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

• Princeton University, Ph.D., Historical Musicology & Interdisciplinary Humanities, May 2026
  • History of Science Graduate Certificate
  • Dissertation “Musica Experientia/Experimentum: Embodied Acoustics and Keyboard Knowledge in Europe, China, and America, 1600–present”
• Stony Brook University, D.M.A., Harpsichord Performance, May 2017
  • Final Research DMA Recital “Le Rossignol en Amour: Mimesis, Imitation, and Variation”
• University of California, Berkeley, B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Pi Tau Sigma, May 2011
  • Senior design project: Prototype closed-loop self-tuning harpsichord device using LabVIEW.